March
12, 2001

BUSH'S
FOREIGN POLICY:
THE UNFOLDING DISASTERThree bad omens: the Balkans, Korea,
and the Middle East

Encouraged
by campaign talk about the virtues of "humility" on
the world stage, many hoped that the incoming administration
would turn over a new leaf when it comes to foreign
policy  or, at least, rake away some of the
moldy old leaves left on the White House lawn by the
Clintonistas. But the prospects for a clean sweep
grow dimmer as we get closer to the 100th day of the
Bush Restoration, and in the past few days there have
been a number of indications that, from a foreign
policy perspective, we may well be worse off
for at least the next four years.

SILENT
COUP?

A
particularly nausea-inducing example is the
news that the administration has delivered an ultimatum
to the government of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica:
either issue a statement recognizing the ultimate authority
of the International Tribunal for war crimes in the former
Yugoslavia by March 31, or else face a complete cutoff
of badly-need US aid. Has Madeleine Albright somehow sneaked
in the back door of the State Department and pulled off
a silent coup? Particularly disgusting is an ancillary
demand that Yugoslav legislators must take their marching
orders straight from Washington: as Steve Erlanger puts
it in the New York Times, "Belgrade is also being
asked to pass a law that would allow transfer of indicted
people to The Hague without making any prior determination
of guilt or innocence..." Sitting in their bombed-out
homes, suffering through a cold winter without adequate
heat, and besieged by US-sponsored guerrillas who have
launched attacks to "liberate" southern Serbia as well
as Macedonia, the Serbs are being forced to do what they
never did after the Kosovo war: cry "uncle!" Yugoslavia
never surrendered: Clinton merely stopped bombing, but
kept on the offensive  and not only with cruel and
economically destructive sanctions.

A
SINISTER CONFLUENCE

The
American-backed insurgency in south Serbia's Presevo valley,
we
learn from the [London] Observer, was the creation
of at least one Western intelligence agency, but the question
is: why is this CIA sock puppet expanding its operations
during the first hundred days of the Bush administration?
It is a clear signal: the Balkan policy of this Republican
president is going to be worse than Clinton's. Clinton,
you'll recall, was reluctant to get involved, in spite
of his campaign rhetoric: it took nearly seven years of
relentless pressure from the War Party (and God knows
how many payoffs) before the bombs fell on Belgrade. But
it looks like Bush is starting on the same path early
on, and with very little prompting The Observer
piece notes that, after consulting with Team Bush last
week, ambassador William D. Montgomery "delivered the
demands in a three-page list" to Kostunica. The sinister
confluence of these events  the issuing of a US
ultimatum and the escalation of the US-created Albanian
insurgency  speaks for itself.

A
LIVING LEGACY

I
oppose all "foreign aid," which generally falls into two
categories: corporate subsidies for US exporters, and
subsidies for our satraps and hit men abroad, such as
the Albanian "liberation fronts" of Presevo and Macedonia.
But the US tax dollars that would go toward reconstructing
Yugoslavia are neither  they are just reparations
for the damage inflicted by our illegal and immoral assault
on a sovereign country that had never attacked us. Indeed,
the paltry sum voted by our usually spendthrift legislators
would hardly cover the cost of rebuilding a few blocks
in bombed-out Belgrade. All the money in the world, of
course, cannot right the wrong done to the Serbian people
by the criminal gang in the Clinton White House: the death
of over 5,000 Serbs during the war is a tragedy without
a price tag. But the idea that we, therefore, owe them
nothing is one that could only be accepted in this, our
Clintonian era. The First Felon may be gone, and even
disgraced, but his legacy lives on in the foreign policy
of a new president seemingly intent on exacerbating the
crimes of his predecessor.

REINING
IN POWELL

Another
example of the same ominous phenomenon is occurring on
the other side of the world: in Korea, where the US has
put the kibosh on President Kim Dae-jung's effort to speed
up the reunification process begun last June. When secretary
of state Colin Powell remarked that he saw "promising
elements" in the prospect of continued negotiations with
the North Koreans and unequivocally announced that the
Bush administration would "pick up where President Clinton
left off," the War Party went into cardiac arrest 
and Powell was subsequently reined in by the dominant
hawks in the administration. A [London] Telegraph
article about the
growing foreign policy split in Team Bush notes that
"Gen. Powell took the unusual step of leaving the talks
between Mr. Bush and the South Korean leader halfway through
to brief White House reporters on the administration's
unexpectedly tougher approach." North Korea, he hastened
to reassure them, is still a threat  and you can
forget about talks with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim
Jong-il. While the White House is insisting that Powell's
initial remarks were "misinterpreted," the Telegraph
tells us that "Republican officials accused him of trying
to dictate policy over the heads of other members of Mr.
Bush's team." The battle for the foreign policy of the
Bush administration has begun in earnest  and the
good guys are not winning.

"STAR
WARS" AND KOREA

The
forces at work here are, in one sense, easy to identify.
The "Star Wars" crowd has long held up North Korea as
one of its prime examples of precisely the sort of "rogue"
regime that might launch a missile attack on the US or
its allies, and this was fueled when Pyongyang launched
a rocket that flew over Japanese airspace: the US has
ever since been trying to dragoon the reluctant Japanese
into financing the missile defense program. But the internal
crisis of North Korean society has rained on that particular
parade: the prospect of the regime's collapse would certainly
be a blow to the paid propagandists of the arms industry,
who hope to reap billions from this particular sale. However,
it isn't only the merchants of death and their amen corner
who are cheering this latest development: the pro-China
wing of the Republican party is also doing handstands.
As Chalmers Johnson pointed out in his indispensable book,
Blowback:
The Costs and Consequences of American Empire:

"China
today actually seems more interested in a perpetuation
of the status quo on the Korean peninsula. Its policy
is one of 'no unification, no war.' Not unlike the eighth-
and ninth-century Tang
dynasty's relations with the three Korean kingdoms
of Koguryo,
Silla,
and Paekche,
China presently enjoys diplomatic relations with both
Koreas and may prefer a structurally divided peninsula.
A Korea unable to play its obvious role as a buffer between
China, Russia, and Japan would give China a determining
influence there."

FATHER
AND SON

A
Korea unified and free  and possibly armed with
nuclear weapons  is "not a development the Chinese
would necessarily welcome," writes Johnson. In that Beijing
has much in common with the so-called "hardliners" in
the Bush administration  whose "hardness" masks
a less obvious softness for China's present rulers. The
reign of Bush II is marked by the same caution that drove
his father to try to rein in the liberation movements
in the Baltics and throughout Eastern Europe. As the Warsaw
Pact disintegrated, and with it any rationale for the
continuation of the cold war, Bush I and his advisors
were horrified, and tried to forestall the reunification
of Germany until it was no longer possible to hold back
the tides of history. Events in Korea may overtake Bush
II and his courtiers in a similar fashion  once
again underscoring the general ineffectiveness of our
shortsighted, crisis-driven foreign policy. Without preparing
their South Korea allies for what may be inevitable 
the shock of absorbing millions of economic refugees from
the rapidly collapsing North  Seoul may face an
ultimately destabilizing crisis.

CAUTION
AND COMPLICITY

This
same facade of "caution" is being used to give a neutral
coloration to the US posture toward stalled Israeli-Palestinian
peace negotiations: the US, we are told, is "withdrawing"
from this arena, as if this is evidence of a "humble"
or even "isolationist" foreign policy. No so! Withdrawal,
in this context, means a gesture of support to the hardline
regime of Ariel Sharon, which opposes real negotiations
in any case. You can also be sure that the US will look
the other way as the Likudniks unleash their campaign
to ethnically cleanse the land of Palestine. By failing
to follow through on its promise to be an honest broker
in the Middle East, the US once again provokes the kind
of anger among Arabs that can only have unfortunate consequences
for the tens of thousands of US troops stationed in the
region. As the US distances itself from the expansionist
drive that animates Sharon and his supporters  in
Israel and the US  the silence of our policymakers
is rightly seen by the Arabs as complicity with and support
for the activities of a US client state. We are, after
all, financing the Israeli military, and keeping the socialist
Israeli economy afloat, with billions in subsidies 
although, in view of the Marc Rich affair (and the subsequent
cover-up) just whom is whose client appears to
be an open question.

SO
MUCH FOR "HUMILITY"

All
around the world, the changing of the guard in Washington
is having its effect  and it is not, contrary to
hopes and expectations, one that will lead to peace. Far
from it: war clouds gather on every horizon, from the
Balkans to Eastasia to the Middle East. We were told that
Colin Powell might prove to be a restraining influence,
and that the natural "humility" of George W. would ensure
that, somehow, US foreign policy would reverse course.
It isn't happening  and, one can confidently predict,
it won't happen. From a noninterventionist perspective
 that is, from the perspective of those conservative
Republicans "realists" who question our ability to intervene
globally  things are worse, much worse, than
ever: and this, I hasten to remind you, is just the beginning.

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